


Keeping Secrets

by reeby10



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel, Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Extremis Pepper Potts, F/M, Post-Iron Man 3, Secret Identity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-23
Updated: 2015-06-23
Packaged: 2018-04-05 20:13:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4193376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reeby10/pseuds/reeby10
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She’d worn Tony’s Mark 42 once, accidentally really, but she remembered how it felt, and that was the genesis of her new idea. A suit, along with her new Extremis powers, and she could be a real superhero.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Keeping Secrets

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tristesses](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tristesses/gifts).



> Written for tristesses for the Every Woman Exchange. I love writing Pepper and had a lot of fun with her starting to use her new-found powers. I meant to go a bit further with that and include more Rhodey, but this is how it wanted to go lol I hope you like it!

After the dust settled, things didn’t really go back to normal. There was really no way they could, with all of the Iron Man suits destroyed and Tony still suffering PTSD and Pepper suddenly having powers. It was a jumble of confusion and fear, and Pepper really wasn’t sure how to go about rebuilding their lives.

Tony’s first step was to get the arc reactor removed from his chest. Pepper waited for hours outside of the operating room hoping he would come out alright. She knew it was something he needed to do to feel ok about everything that had happened, but she still worried. He was more fragile than he liked to admit.

He asked her if she wanted surgery of her own before he was even quite healed himself. At first she didn’t understand what he meant, but then it hit her. The Extremis.

It was far easier than she’d thought to forget about what had been done to her. Tony was hurting too at the time, and she’d had years of practice in paying close attention to his needs and putting hers on the backburner. Now it was different, they were in an equal relationship, but sometimes she needed the reminder that her needs were important too. And this, especially, was important.

She thought hard about what she wanted to do. Surgery wasn’t something to be jumped into lightly, but neither was leaving things as they were. She’d been changed by the Extremis, she had powers now. Superpowers.

That thought was what clinched it for her. She supposed the idea had been sitting in the back of her mind for awhile, just waiting for the right time to be brought out and seriously considered. Superpowers. She had superpowers. And as easy as it would be to have the surgery and put it all behind her, that wasn’t what she _needed_ to do.

She’d worn Tony’s Mark 42 once, accidentally really, but she remembered how it felt, and that was the genesis of her new idea. A suit, along with her new Extremis powers, and she could be a real superhero.

It took awhile after that for things to really come together. Experimenting with her new powers without Tony finding out was difficult, but thankfully Rhodey was sympathetic, even if she didn’t tell him everything. He knew how clingy Tony could be sometimes, so Rhodey found her an unused Air Force warehouse she could use. If he noticed the char marks she left, he didn’t mention it.

The important part, though, was the suit. She’d thought about just going out like she was, just in some sort of costume, but the idea didn’t sit quite right with her. The Iron Man suit was the beginning, in some ways her beginning, and even though Tony had blown up all the suits he’d built, there was still a place in their world for Iron Man.

Apparently Tony thought so as well, just not in quite the same way.

It was a day just like any other when Pepper went looking for Tony in his workshop. He’d been down there for most of every day for the past few weeks. It was a little suspicious because he wouldn’t talk about what he was doing, but JARVIS had assured her that he wasn’t doing anything more dangerous than usual.

Tony turned out not to be in the workshop, but she did find something else even more interesting there. Tony had been building Iron Man suits.

There were three suits up on pedestals, all looking brand new and ready to be worn to her eyes. She circled them slowly, wondering why Tony hadn’t told her he’d started up on the suits again. He probably didn’t want her to worry, and to be honest he might not have even been planning on wearing them. Even without the arc reactor and all his previous suits exploded, Iron Man was a part of himself that he couldn’t deny. And Pepper planned on taking advantage of that.

“JARVIS?” she asked, still looking intently at the suits. She liked the one on the left. It was a little slimmer and highlighted with silver instead of gold.

“Yes, Ms. Potts?”

“Can you tell me where Tony is, please?” she asked.

There was a moment of silence as JARVIS checked, then, “He is in the exercise room. He has been there for 12.4 minutes so will likely remain there for at least another 28 minutes.”

“Thank you. Please let me know if he comes down early,” she said, smiling. This was the perfect opportunity, more perfect than she might have imagined. “Now tell me about these suits.”

***

Flying turned out to be both harder and far more exciting than it seemed when she’d been flown around by Tony before.

With JARVIS keeping a metaphorical eye on Tony for her, Pepper began training in one of the suits. It wasn’t a perfect fit as it hadn’t been built specifically for her, but it was good enough. She was already familiar with how the suits worked, and with JARVIS’ helping her acclimate, she picked up pretty quickly.

The warehouse turned out to be a good place to practice flying as well, even if it resulted in more than a few dents in the walls and ceiling. After she got better at that, it became her training ground, filled with mannequins and targets she’d had Rhodey procure for her. She liked that he didn’t ask too many questions, trusting her to tell him what she was doing when she was ready.

It took three months before she felt like she was at that point. She’d been working her butt off, getting used to the suit and figuring out how to incorporate her Extremis powers. It was incredibly hard work, even more than she’d expected, but the thing she was most proud of was that Tony hadn’t figured it out.

She knew Rhodey was suspicious and probably had a pretty good idea of what she was doing, and she saw him far less than she did Tony. She lived with Tony, for goodness sake, but she knew he could be pretty oblivious. And of course having JARVIS on her side helped.

When the day finally came that she felt like it was time to take the suit out for a live test, she asked Rhodey to meet her at the warehouse. He’d been a good friend for a long time and had helped probably more than he knew. He deserved to hear from her before she saw the suit on the news, and she liked the idea of having another person in her corner.

“Pepper?” Rhodey called as he entered the warehouse, looking around with a frown on his face when he didn’t immediately see her.

Pepper smiled a little to herself and stepped out into the light. “Hey, Rhodey,” she said, knowing the voice modulation in the suit would ensure he couldn’t tell immediately that it was her.

“Tony?” he asked, frowning even more. “What are you doing here? I thought I was meeting Pepper.”

“You are,” she replied. She opened the visor and smiled at the look of disbelief on his face. “Surprise!”

Rhodey stared at her blankly for several minutes, long enough that she started getting worried, before bursting into loud, almost hysterical, laughter. She couldn’t help but laugh as well, and soon they were both bent double, laughing so hard Pepper was sure her face was as red as her suit.

“So?” she asked once they’d both calmed down a little. She gave a little spin. “What do you think?”

He regarded her with a critical eye. “Looks good,” he finally said. “I assume that you’re planning to actually use it, going by the charred targets over there. Does Tony know?”

“No,” Pepper replied, unable to hold back a snort of laughter. “He’s totally oblivious as usual. I’m sure he’ll figure it out eventually. Probably after Iron Man starts showing up on the news and he realizes one of his suits has gone missing pretty regularly.”

“You are far more devious than anyone gives you credit for,” Rhodey said, shaking his head. “Give ‘em hell, but stay safe.”

“I will.”

***

“Pepper!” Tony shouted, barging into Pepper’s office and immediately turning on the tv in the corner. She gave him a look that said she was very much not impressed by his antics, but he ignored her. As usual. “Have you seen this?”

She glanced over at the tv to see shots from her latest jaunt out in the suit and smiled a little, careful not to let Tony see it. “Yes, it’s been on the news quite a bit lately,” she said, voice carefully innocent even though all she wanted to do was break out into laughter. “I’d been meaning to ask you when you started that up again.”

“That’s not me,” Tony replied, glowering. “Someone has been taking out one of my new suits and JARVIS won’t tell me who.”

“Hmm, fancy that.”

“Do you-” he started, then broke off. He looked quickly back and forth between her and the tv for a moment, and she could practically see the gears turning in his head. She smiled blandly back, not giving anything away. “You!” he finally exclaimed, pointing wildly at her. “It’s you, isn’t it?” 

She shrugged, and his eyes narrowed even more. “I don’t know what you want me to say, Tony,” she said serenely. She was glad she’d practiced this in the mirror, because otherwise there was no way she would have been able to keep a straight face.

“The truth would be nice,” he grumbled, crossing his arms over his chest. “I didn’t even know you knew about the suits.”

“I kind of stumbled upon them,” she replied, finally giving up on her veneer of innocence. “I didn’t even know you had started building them again. Amazing how people keep secrets, isn’t it?”

Tony let out a huff of breath, but Pepper could tell he wasn’t really mad, just annoyed that he hadn’t figured it out earlier. He didn’t like not knowing everything about everyone around him, but she’d known that about him already. This secret was just more personally connected than he was used to.

“So,” he said after a few minutes. His usual smirk was back on his face, so he’d obviously recovered from the shock of finding out she’d been superheroing behind his back. “Have you thought of a name to go by?”

Pepper smiled. “I was thinking Rescue.”

**Author's Note:**

> Concrit welcome. If you like my fic, come chat with me [on tumblr](http://voldiebuns.tumblr.com/) or maybe [buy me a coffee](http://ko-fi.com/A7274PC).


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